The Cassutt Files
The Season of Hope

Ah, spring. As the northeastern and midwestern regions of the nation groan under the weight of lake-effect snow (something I will be experiencing even as you read this), in that small part of California known, somewhat mythically, as Hollywood, the skies are bright, the sun shines, temperatures are on the rise ...

And so are hopes for the new crop of pilots.

It is that season again, when five networks commence production on a crop of potential shows that will blossom with the next Lost, Battlestar Galactica or Heroes.

Of course, this season of hope isn't quite the all-or-nothing, do-it-now-or-wait-another-year roll of the dice it used to be: other outlets, from basic cable channels like USA, TNT and SCI FI to pay cable systems HBO and Showtime, have different development schedules. Some of them are using the warming days of the spring season to listen to the pitches that will be become scripts and pilots this summer.

Even Fox, one of the five nets, has a staggered development schedule.

Nevertheless, it's a time of hope, where producers and writers battle with networks and studios over casting, over rewrites, over budgets, all in search of that holy grail of the hit ... the signature series that means money, recognition and, oh yes, at some level, artistic satisfaction.

A new Lost waits to be found

CBS has put a trio of sci-fi or fantasy-themed pilots in the works, including a pair that seem to have emerged from the fondly remembered Joan of Arcadia: Demons, from Joan creator Barbara Hall, about the lives of exorcists ... and Babylon Fields, a lighter-hearted project dealing with dead souls returning to earth to complete unfinished business, which stars Joan herself, Amber Tamblyn. (There's not really a connection, you say? Who's writing this column, me or you?) Fields is written by Michael Atkinson and Gerald Cuestra.

There's also Twilight, the adventures of a vampire who takes a job as a private investigator. Writers are Ron Koslow, creator of the wonderful Beauty and the Beast, and Trevor Munson.

Emboldened by the surprising success of Heroes, NBC is searching for suitable companions (though my old network mind says that Friday Night Lights should follow Heroes on Monday night). ...

First up is a remake of the 1970s series The Bionic Woman, from Battlestar Galactica producer David Eick and writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey). The new version will star English actress Michelle Ryan as the re-engineered title Jaime Sommers.

Another effort is Journeyman, the story of a man who travels through time to make things better (not necessarily to rearrange history). Writer is Kevin Falls and director is Alex Graves. Both have credits on West Wing, among many other series.

Fox seems to be developing sci-fi projects that, well, feel more like sci-fi, beginning with Them (also produced by BSG's David Eick) and The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Them deals with a federal agent investigating possible illegal-alien infiltration. No, this isn't about the Minuteman and the border with Mexico. I mean extraterrestrial aliens. Here Eick is not only producer but co-writer with John McNamara. Jonathan Mostow directs. He, of course, did Terminator 3 and is set for Terminator 4.

Speaking of Terminator, Chronicles is set in the world of the Terminator movies, specifically a sequel (of sorts) to Terminator 2, and stars Thomas Dekker of Heroes and Summer Glau from The 4400. Sarah is written by Josh Friedman, perhaps best known to us for Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Director is David Nutter, whose stylish darkness helped shape the pilots for X-Files, Smallville, Dark Angel and Supernatural.

Fox's New Amsterdam deals with a New York City detective who just happens to be immortal. Writers are Allan Loeb and Christian Taylor (Lost). Most intriguing ... the choice of Lasse Hallstrom as director. Hallstrom is best known for My Life as a Dog, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and Chocolat, among others.

The CW has hopes for Reaper, about a guy who happens to be the devil's bounty hunter.

ABC is pushing Pushing Daisies from Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, more recently of Heroes), a lighter comedy about bringing back the dead. Kristin Chenoweth and Chi McBride star. Daisies' director is Barry Sonnenfeld, late of Men in Black, which may give a hint as to the tone.

Life on Mars, a remake of the British series about a cop from our time who is flung back to the mid-1970s, there to cope with a world without iPods, home computers and debates over the fate of the remains of Anna Nicole Smith. Life on Mars is written by David E. Kelley, the acclaimed voice of L.A. Law, The Practice, Ally McBeal and others.

(A general note here: credits are incomplete and nowhere near final.)

There are also a couple of sci-fi-themed comedies in the works, notably Area 52, about workers at a secret alien repository, on NBC. Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) directs a Mike Armstrong script. Paul Reubens is in the cast.

ABC will bring us Caveman—the travails of the character from the Geiko ads. OK, sci-fi comedies are usually retreads of My Favorite Martian—why not My Favorite Neanderthal?

Success is a matter of timing

What are we to conclude from the log-line concepts? One thing is obvious—you can be a time traveler, a vampire, an immortal (often these are the same) or re-incarnated ... as long as you are a detective, a police officer or a federal agent.

Frankly, given that the major nets have been stung by a) failed attempts to replicate the success of Lost with high-concept sci-fi (Invasion, Surface, Threshold) in 2005, and then b) failed attempts to replicate Lost's serialized style of storytelling (The Nine, Vanished, Kidnapped), I'm pleasantly surprised to see concepts like these at all. So I will happily sit back and, in the spirit of Keith Olbermann's tagline, hold out hopes today for the shows I'll be watching tomorrow. ...

Or not. My network of spies already informs me that one of these shoots is already in serious trouble.

Not that surviving the agonies of production, post-production, testing and scheduling is a guarantee of success: far from it. If recent network history has taught us sci-fi fans anything, it's that success is often a matter of timing. Serenity, Wonderfalls and Threshold are just a trio of shows that would have survived in slightly different timeslots.

Actually, most new dramas would like to simply follow American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. The arcane art of scheduling is less mysterious than it appears.